Multifunctional wearable electronic textiles based on interfacial polymerization of polypyrrole on carbon nanotubes/cotton fibers offer advantages of simple and low-cost materials that incorporate bactericidal, good electrochemical performance, and electrical heating properties. The high conductivity of doped polypyrrole/CNT composite provides textiles that reaches temperature on order of 70 °C with field of 5 V/cm, superior electrochemical performance applied as electrodes of supercapacitor prototypes, reaching capacitance in order of 30 F g and strong bactericidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The combination of these properties can be explored in smart devices for heat and microbial treatment on different parts of body, with incorporated storage of energy on textiles.

No abstract

No abstract

The development of highly conductive, flexible, mechanical reinforced and chemically modified cotton yarns for electrodes of supercapacitors represents an important advance in the energy storage devices applied in wearable electronics. The production of carbon-based conductive layers as supports for chemical polymerization of active polymeric materials (such as polypyrrole) is an important strategy that associates the high electrical double-layer capacitance of the carbon derivatives (carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoplatelets) and the pseudocapacitance of the polypyrrole in truly flexible devices with improved electrochemical response-high capacitance. These properties are affected by relative concentration of graphene nanoplatelets in carbon complexes due to the variation in overall conductivity of electrodes (in consequence of low aggregation degree and available surface area) and the electrochemical properties of the resulting devices that reaches capacitance in order of 45.5 F g −1 with a capacitive retention of 70% after 2000 cycles of use. These promising results open possibilities for new systems in wearable electronics.

Preparing sustainable and highly efficient biochars as electrodes remains a challenge for building green energy storage devices. In this study, efficient carbon electrodes for supercapacitors were prepared via a facile and sustainable single-step pyrolysis method using spruce bark as a biomass precursor. Herein, biochars activated by KOH and ZnCl2 are explored as templates to be applied to prepare electrodes for supercapacitors. The physical and chemical properties of biochars for application as supercapacitors electrodes were strongly affected by factors such as the nature of the activators and the meso/microporosity, which is a critical condition that affects the internal resistance and diffusive conditions for the charge accumulation process in a real supercapacitor. Results confirmed a lower internal resistance and higher phase angle for devices prepared with ZnCl2 in association with a higher mesoporosity degree and distribution of Zn residues into the matrix. The ZnCl2-activated biochar electrodes’ areal capacitance reached values of 342 mF cm−2 due to the interaction of electrical double-layer capacitance/pseudocapacitance mechanisms in a matrix that favors hydrophilic interactions and the permeation of electrolytes into the pores. The results obtained in this work strongly suggest that the spruce bark can be considered a high-efficiency precursor for biobased electrode preparation to be employed in SCs.